A “Country” Apart

The division between Rural and Urban thoughts in regards to what happens in the countryside has never been so far apart.

Like most people I have friends and family that live in towns and cities and often find myself answering a lot of questions on what I do for a living and most of all why. Often though I am NOT met with gasps and huffs but more curiosity than anything, however, there are some occassions where I am met with dissapproval.

When met with these questions I am normally happy to give as much of an educational answer as possible and if need be try to be less graphic as possible so not to disgust my audience, but, should this be the right approach?

When talking to people I always get the comment “thats not what we hear and see on TV” and often my reply is “thats where the problem is”.

Television programs such as Springwatch seem to glamourise and grossly edit as well as fluffify the country hiding from the more gruesome side and saddly almost refusing to report the hard work that goes on to manage the wildlife and management needed.

With the over emphasis of how cute and cuddly animals are they forgetting to mention how naturally invasive some can be as well as how brutal the countryside is?.

With this kind of Television we do find a lot of people questioning the country lifestyle and jobs of people who live and manage our countryside. There is a case that fluffifying the country environment adds to the “anti” nature of those that do not live in the country and the added feeling of “us and them”.

It is not unusual to hear people thinking beef comes from a supermarket or duck or chicken etc. Which in a way shows lack of natural education in our schools.

For the division to be closed there has to be media changes, TV shows such as Springwatch NEED to show EVERY side of country life and not just the fluffy side, schools and education systems need to be less squeamish about what happens in nature and where we really get our meats from and more questions need to be asked and answered with honesty and no affiliated agenda.

The future of shooting and hunting depends on the whole country maybe not accepting the sport and the reasoning behind it but at least understand WHY in many cases it has to be done, there is many who have asked me lots of questions on what I do that has had their perceptions changed just by myself being honest with my answers.